RIETPOORT, South Africa - A week short of her 51st birthday, Sanna Owies sits on her front steps hiding from the scorching midday sun and dreams about the perfect gift: fresh water from her own tap. Her dream of never again having to lug buckets of brackish water from a communal tap 300 meters (yards) away may soon be realized.

Though 7 million South Africans still don't have access to clean water, the government is greatly reducing those numbers with a water program hailed as one of the most ambitious and successful in the world.

Since all-race elections ended apartheid in 1994, 10 million people have gained access to clean water and the government says nearly all 43 million South Africans will have it by 2008. Some 18 million South Africans also don't have toilets, and the government hopes to provide them all with proper sanitation by 2015.

The World Summit for Sustainable Development starting in Johannesburg next week is hoping to replicate South Africa's achievement across the developing world, where more than 5 million die each year from water-related diseases.

An estimated 1.1 billion people worldwide don't have safe drinking water, and 2.5 billion lack proper sanitation. The U.N. wants the summit to commit to cutting in half the number of people without access to clean water or sewage systems by 2015.

A draft implementation plan calls for 750 million taps and 1.25 billion more toilets over the next 13 years. Halifa Drammeh, a water policy expert with the U.N. Environment Program in Nairobi, Kenya, believes South Africa has set an outstanding example for the developing world.

"They were able to carry out very significant water reforms," he said. "We think they have made considerable progress." The right to clean water is entrenched in South Africa's Constitution, and authorities have undertaken to provide each household with 6,000 liters (1,560 gallons) of free water a month.

"There is no point in putting pipes in the ground and telling people to pay more than they earn, because then they just don't use the water," said Mike Muller, director-general of the water affairs department.

Rietpoort, a dusty town about 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Cape Town, is scheduled to get treated running water within a year to replace its unreliable and often brackish supply of ground water.

"We have water every day (but) you can't drink it," said Helen Beukes, 27, the Rietpoort librarian. She gets drums of drinking water from her sister in a nearby town when her supply of rain water runs out. Sanna Owies, the woman dreaming of fresh water, said she is unemployed and has no option but to drink the brackish water, even though it made her sick.

"I've got high blood pressure and (the water) makes me swell up," she said. Workers have already begun digging trenches between Rietpoort and the town of Bitterwater 20 kilometers (13 miles) away, which has a water treatment plant. Blue plastic pipes have been stacked outside the municipal offices ready to be laid.

Strong political backing, proper water management structures throughout government and the allocation of adequate resources have underpinned South Africa's success, Muller said.

World leaders at the summit also will have to consider how to conserve the world's rapidly diminishing fresh water supplies. Global demand for water has skyrocketed over the past century, increasing more than six-fold, while the world's population has only tripled.

The United Nations warns that without better management, two-thirds of people will suffer from severe or moderate shortages by 2025.

David Smith, the acting head of U.N. Environment Program's policy division in Nairobi, Kenya, said there were proven ways to conserve water and extend access to it, but world leaders could not agree on how to implement them. The World Wildlife Fund believes the summit is unlikely to adequately address the problem.

"Nothing in the (summit's) draft plan will prevent more rivers from being overexploited, and in fact, a number of governments are objecting to the adoption of measurable targets and funding allocations for sustainable water management," the conservation organization said.

Muller, the South Africa water expert, believes it is possible for the rest of the world to emulate South Africa's example, although poorer countries will need international assistance.

"The resources are there, the skills are there. What's missing is the political will," he said. Nampa-Sapa-AP /rjt 08/23/02 07-17 14 WEB story ENDS (NAMPA 230622)